Authors: Peter Lovesey
She turned back to the prisoner and, wonder of wonders, got another response.
‘Hossain Farhadi, student,’ she was able to tell them.
Was this the breakthrough, tight lips willing to loosen up at last?
‘Student of which college?’
Polly listened to Farhadi’s answer and translated. ‘West Wiltshire Higher Education Institute, Bradford on Avon.’
Diamond felt the kind of lift you get from champagne.
‘As we already worked out,’ Gull said. ‘Does he know the college was closed down?’
Presently Polly was able to say, ‘Yes, and he and many other students who had come to England in good faith were left with nowhere to study. He tried other colleges and they wouldn’t consider him without a better knowledge of English.’
‘Tough tittie,’ Gull said.
Polly paused, while Farhadi said more.
‘He couldn’t return to Iran. He’d fled his homeland for political reasons. People disappear, are imprisoned, tortured and executed. The secret police took away two of his brothers and one of his friends three years ago and he hasn’t seen them since. He expected he would be safe in England.’
‘Pity England wasn’t safe from him,’ Gull muttered to Diamond.
The prisoner said some more and the translation followed.
‘He was on an official student visa and even though the college closed he intended to return to education later. So he was determined to stay at any cost. With the help of some other Iranians he obtained work as a casual labourer on farms mainly in West Wiltshire and Somerset. It was the kind of work he’d been doing as part of his education.’
‘Education, my arse,’ Gull said.
‘I don’t believe he knew it was a con,’ Polly said.
‘You’re being paid to translate, not give an opinion.’
Diamond said, ‘Be fair, Jack. She’s telling us the sense of what he’s said to her.’
Hossain Farhadi had started up again.
Polly translated. ‘He worked hard for many months and earned enough money to live. He gave up trying to find another course because he needed to put in the hours of work to pay for his food and rent. Then one day he was picking potatoes in the field and the police arrived. He and some others ran off and managed to hide, but several others were put in vans and driven away. He was told by his friends that they would be taken to something called –’ She hesitated and looked across at Gull for help. ‘– an extermination centre?’
‘What the fuck …?’
‘Removal,’ Diamond said, ‘a removal centre.’
Polly shrugged. ‘In his country this means something more sinister. He was scared of being taken to such a place. He is still terrified you’ll take him there.’
‘Is he simple-minded?’ Gull asked her. ‘We don’t do that. Someone must have told him about deportation.’
‘That alarms him, too.’
‘He can forget about that,’ Gull said.
‘Can I tell him?’
‘Tell him we’ll hear what he’s got to say and then decide where to send him.’
The prisoner started speaking again and the English version followed.
‘The remaining students decided their best chance was to split up and go their separate ways. Some went to London, some to the Midlands. He decided to stay in the only part of the country he knew, the West, but on his own, survival was even more difficult. He’d lost his job and couldn’t communicate.’
‘He took to stealing?’ Diamond said.
‘The motorbike,’ Gull said. ‘Is he admitting to nicking that?’
‘Do you want me to ask him?’ Polly said, more to Diamond than Gull.
Diamond nodded. It could open the gate to the bigger charges.
They could see Farhadi frown as the question was put to him.
Gull took a photo of the bike from the folder in front of him and passed it across the table.
Farhadi took one glance and nodded. Then he continued speaking, but in shorter, more impassioned statements that Polly rendered into English in her even tone, as straightforwardly
as if she were reading out instructions on assembling flat-pack furniture.
‘He knew he was on the run from the police. His student visa was no longer valid, so he got rid of it with his passport. He didn’t want to be identified. He was angry because he had done nothing wrong.’
‘Worked in the black economy and stole a fucking motorbike. Nothing wrong there?’ Gull said.
He didn’t get an answer, presumably because Polly treated the remark as rhetorical.
‘He believed he had only a few days of liberty left, and he could expect to spend the rest of his life behind bars.’
‘Too fucking right,’ Gull said.
‘He is thinking of prison in Iran. The penal system there is very harsh.’
Gull turned to Diamond and said through his teeth, ‘I can see where this is heading and I don’t buy it, don’t buy it at all.’
Farhadi was already making his next point, stabbing the air with his hands.
Polly translated in the same steady tone, ‘He was living rough, a fugitive, a wanted man, surviving on what he could find or scavenge, sleeping in barns and outhouses, constantly expecting the police to arrest him. He has a deep-seated fear of men in uniform.’
‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ Gull said.
Diamond said, ‘Let him speak, Jack. He’s doing our work for us.’
Another rush of words followed.
‘For a time he was in other towns, south of here, but eventually he came back to the place he knows best, where the college was. He knew the police were closing in. He had a couple of narrow escapes before you finally arrested him.’
Farhadi had stopped speaking. Polly waited and only got a nod that seemed to say, ‘End of story.’
The prisoner folded his arms and sat back.
If he thought he had finished, he was being optimistic.
‘Let’s rewind a bit,’ Gull said. ‘We recovered the bike from the river. We also recovered this.’ He pushed a photo of the assault rifle across the table.
Farhadi tensed and his facial muscles rippled. He was silent for a few seconds, as if weighing his options. Then he spoke more words that Polly turned into English.
‘He had money in his old lodgings, saved from the farm labouring, and he decided to arm himself. He’d learned to shoot during military service. He was a qualified marksman. He bought the gun from an illegal trader in Bath.’
‘Your patch,’ Gull said to Diamond. He turned to Polly. ‘Ask him if he wants to tell us how he used the gun. No, let’s go for broke. Tell him we have ballistic evidence that this gun – his gun – was used to murder police officers, the first in Wells twelve weeks ago.’
Up to now, Farhadi had given little away, but as Polly translated, the first signs of alarm showed in his eyes. He glanced down, seeking the right words to explain his actions. When he finally spoke, the gravity of what he was accused of came through in the voice.
Polly’s rendering was, of course, free of all that, except in the sense of the words. ‘His original plan was to defend himself when the police came for him. He was sleeping rough, with the loaded gun beside him. But the more he considered his situation, the more he realised he was likely to be killed in a shoot-out.’
‘Twisted thinking,’ Gull said.
‘He says the combination of being alone and on the run, forced to break the law to get food, often being hungry and too afraid to get much sleep, affected his brain. He became paranoid.’
‘His word?’ Diamond asked Polly.
She reddened. ‘All of this is as accurate as I can make it. Paranoid is the expression he uses. I can ask him again to be certain.’
There was another short exchange before she said, ‘He confirms it. He was having nightmares about the police. He believed they were everywhere, watching him through spy cameras, setting traps, waiting to ambush him. It all built up in his brain and became unbearable, usually at night.’
‘This is breaking me up,’ Gull said with a yawn.
Farhadi’s explanation had moved on to a new level. ‘When the night terrors reached a particular point of crisis, he believed there would be no release until he used the gun to shoot one of his tormentors. This would be a way of striking back when everything was targeted at him. At first he thought it might be enough just to get a police officer in his sights without pulling the trigger. He would plan the shooting with great care and the sense of power might satisfy.’
The two detectives were compelled to wait while the process of translation was renewed.
‘He found a place in Wells that suited his plan, a tree-house. Two nights he took aim at a passing policeman and resisted firing a shot. But the impulse was overwhelming and on the third occasion he pulled the trigger.’
Gull slapped his hand several times on the table. He’d got his confession.
‘He got away and left Wells for good, but he needed to find another town where there were bins to search for food. He came to Radstock and for a short time he survived quite well. Then the terrors undermined him again. He felt compelled to use the gun a second time, and he did.’
‘For the hell of it, or what?’ Gull said, becoming angrier now that guilt was admitted.
Polly put this into some form of words for Farhadi and got a response.
‘He experienced the same build-up of extreme anxiety that he believed could only be assuaged by shooting another policeman. He wishes to make clear that he didn’t know either of his victims. They were uniformed police and the idea alone was driving him, inhabiting his brain.’
‘
Either
of his victims?’ Gull repeated.
‘He told us about two,’ Polly said.
‘I heard what he told us, but we all know there are three. He shot Harry Tasker right here in Bath.’
In response to Polly’s enquiry, Farhadi shrugged and made another short statement.
Polly told Gull, ‘He denies this. He shot two policemen, two only, in Wells and Radstock, and nobody in this city. He was living in Becky Addy Wood and Avoncliff, not Bath. He came here because he was at college in Bradford on Avon and knows the locality.’
‘Bullshit,’ Gull said. ‘Listen, chum, I don’t serve in this dump. I’m from headquarters. You’ll get no sympathy from me this way. You’re a piece of crap whether you killed two of us, or three. Might as well fess up.’
But Farhadi was insistent when it was put to him again.
‘Fucking liar,’ Gull said.
Then Diamond said, ‘Actually, I believe him.’
31
B
efore leaving, Diamond instructed Keith Halliwell to take a small surveillance team to keep watch on Emma Tasker’s house while she was at the funeral.
‘Are you expecting a break-in?’ Halliwell asked, appalled. ‘What kind of sick bastard would plan something like that?’
‘Get with it, Keith,’ Diamond said as one who had heard and seen it all before. ‘That’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. Weddings and funerals. They know the house is empty at this time, so they take their opportunity. I don’t want it happening today. Take Ingeborg and Paul Gilbert and stay out of sight.’
‘If anyone tries it, we’ll come down hard, don’t worry.’
‘Hold on.’ The lofty tone changed rather suddenly. ‘I’m not suggesting violence. It could be just a neighbour pushing a sympathy card through the door.’
He was at Haycombe crematorium a few minutes before the hearse arrived. He stood with the three uniformed police who had served with Harry. They told Diamond that more would certainly have come, but Emma had insisted she wanted three only. About fifteen other people had gathered outside. They all looked grim-faced. He found himself thinking his suggestion of ‘Gone Fishing’ for Harry’s send-off may not have been such a good one.
‘You’re invited to the Hop Pole after the service,’ a man who seemed to be family told the police group. ‘It’s on the Upper Bristol Road, quite close to the house.’
‘We know it, thanks,’ Diamond said. In some ways, he thought, a couple of strong drinks
before
a funeral wouldn’t come amiss. This would be the first he’d attended since Steph had died. He’d felt numb that day. The main service had been in the Abbey, a large affair with almost four hundred in attendance. The close family had been driven here for the committal.
This would not be easy to get through.
The hearse glided through the cemetery towards the entrance followed by a red Fiat Panda. Everyone stood respectfully while the undertaker and his team attended to the coffin. Emma emerged from the Panda in a black trouser suit with a blue shirt. She’d been driven by Betty, the neighbour Diamond had met on his second visit to the house. Actually, Betty looked more like the principal mourner, in a long fur-trimmed coat, black tights and a hat large enough for everyone to shelter under if it rained. They followed the coffin into the chapel.
Apparently Harry had not been religious. The last rites were overseen by a dapper little man Diamond recognised and couldn’t place who admitted in his opening remarks that he’d never met ‘our much lamented friend,’ which sounded like a contradiction in terms. On hearing the voice Diamond remembered arresting the man the previous summer for selling fake Rolex watches outside the Roman Baths. It seemed he had a second career officiating at non-religious committals.
Someone had prepared a short account of Harry’s life that the watch salesman read out in a suitably uplifting voice. He reminded the mourners that Harry had met the love of his life, Emma, while they were both serving in the police. There was a lot about the selfless dedication of the force that was gratifying to hear. Better still from Diamond’s point of view, the tribute went on to say how much Harry had enjoyed his fishing. Surely some of those present would make the connection when the music started.
At the front with her large-hatted neighbour, Emma controlled her emotions. She wasn’t the sort to break down and weep. Hands clasped in front of her, she gazed steadily ahead.
‘And now we have a few moments for quiet reflection on Harry’s life before we take leave of him.’ In a lapse of decorum, the salesman turned his arm to glance at his watch.
The genuine article? You bet it is, Diamond thought.
He couldn’t help noticing that the salesman had a CD in his
other hand. Had he forgotten to hand it to whoever managed the music? He could see the man’s eyes widen as he sensed his mistake. In the nick of time he stepped to one side and passed the disk to the undertaker.